HISTORY, ROMANCE AND...CATS!
Grace Elliot leads a double life as a vet by day and author of intelligent historical fiction by night. Grace is an avid reader and believes that smart people need to read romance - as an antidote to the modern world!
Grace is also obsessed by all things feline.

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Sunday, 21 June 2015

Did Louis Wain's Cat make him Mentally Ill?

In the 1900’s the work of artist Louis
Wain was as popular as ‘Wallace and Gromit’ are today. Louis drew cat
caricatures; anthropomorphosised creatures with huge staring eyes.

“Louis Wain invented a cat style, a
cat society and a whole cat world. English cats that do not look like Louis
Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.”

H G Wells.

Demand for his work was insatiable;
guaranteed to sell any calendar, card or magazine in which it appeared. Cat
lover Louis doted on his pets and it was his favourite black and white moggie Peter
that inspired his style. However Louis’ success dwindled with a slide into mental
illness and the artist ended his days penniless in Bedlam.

A timeline of Louis' workShowing the increasingly disturbed nature of his artas he descended into mental illness

In the 1950’s scientists postulated
that Louis Wain had suffered from brain cysts caused by a toxoplasmosis
infection and pointed the finger at the very cats that were his inspiration.

Toxoplasma is a tiny parasite, in fact
it’s made up of a single cell. Cat owners, especially pregnant women should be
aware of the parasite, because it can cause birth abnormalities in the unborn
child (through contact with infected cat feces).

However the link between toxoplasmosis
(infection with toxoplasma) with brain symptoms has largely been overlooked, but
Louis’ history raises the question of whether indeed his is a case history of
brain infection with Toxoplasma.

Louis Wain at his drawing table - with cat - in 1890

Toxoplasmosis and mental illness

Louis illness manifested itself as
erratic behaviour increasingly violent paranoia and agitation. Where as once he
had been a gentle, caring man who had nursed his sick wife, he became
suspicious of everything and everyone around him; even shouting at a flickering
cinema screen for stealing the electricity from his brain.

Studies in the 1990’s (Flegar et al,
Lindova et al.) point to chronic infection in people causing subtle behavioural
changes, such as slower reaction times and having more car accidents. Holliman’s
study of rodents found infected mice had changed behaviour. They had higher
dopamine levels; a neurotransmitter associated with novelty seeking and
neurotic behaviour. This disinhibited their fear of cat odour and they behaved
erractically. Post mortem analysis showed the amgydala to be the most likely
site of toxoplasmid cysts, this part of the brain governs social behaviour and
emotion, the implication being that brain cysts in humans could indeed present
as mental instability and erratic behaviour.

A 2008 study in America surveyed schizophrenic
patients and found them to be 25% more likely to test seropositive for
toxoplasma than the general population. The significance of this data remains
unclear and is currently under further investigation.

Perhaps it is too simple to suggest
that toxoplasmid cysts were the sole cause of Louis’ mental illness, but more
likely a contributing factor. How likely is it then that his beloved cats were
the source of infection?

Did ‘Peter the cat’ infect Louis Wain?

To find an answer lets consider contemporary
studies into cat ownership and incidence of toxoplasma infection.

Two American studies looking at
cat-owning pregnant women and HIV patients, found no statistical link between
cat ownership and positive toxoplasma serology.

Zoonosis occurs under certain
conditions; namely ingesting sporozoites that have had 24 hours to develop from
oocysts in cat faeces. Stroking the cat is an unlikely source of infection
since most are too fastidious to let faecal contamination persist for long. In
addition cats only shed oocysts for a limited time after eating their first
infected mouse, and repeat shedding is rare, even in immunocompromised cats. Theoretically there is just a small window of
a few weeks after the cat eats his first diseased rodent when his master is at
risk from sporozoites in that animal’s faeces.

So whilst not wishing to belittle the
very real danger of infection from a cat, especially to pregnant women, the
risk from a pet maybe lower than perceived and sporozoites in contaminated soil
is a far greater source of possible infection. (Obviously no risk is worth
taking for a foetus in the womb and so advice must always remain that pregnant
women do not empty litter trays and wear gloves for gardening.)

Other sources of Infection.

Apart from cat faeces other sources of
infections are contaminated soil and water, and raw or undercooked meat.

A Canadian study (Phillips, 1998)
showed an alarming 25% of fresh commercial pork and lamb contained microscopic
toxoplasmid cysts. If this was the case in the 20th century with
modern meat inspection, how much higher the infection rate in Victorian /
Edwardian times? It must have been common for cattle and sheep grazing infected
pasture to ingest oocysts, form bradyzoites in their muscle and the
contaminated meat enter the human food chain.

Could it be that Louis Wain’s wife
Emily, who he nursed faithfully through her final illness, served her husband
undercooked meat? Could she unwittingly have left her husband a legacy that
triggered his descent into mental illness? Was ‘Peter the cat’ innocent after
all?

Unkempt and confused Louis was found
wandering the streets of London. An admirer of his work, Mrs Chesterton,
started a campaign to raise money and save the once popular artist from
destitution. Two hundred and thirty eight pounds was raised by the public,
which was sufficient to buy Louis a bed at the ‘Bethlem Royal Hospital,’ also
known as ‘Bedlam,’ (after the noise made by the in-patients.) so he could end
his days with dignity.

As an aside it was here a century
earlier, that one Doctor William Battie made his name. Unlike his contempories
Dc Battie believed mental illness could be treated and it is from the good
doctor that the slang term ‘batty’ (for a mad idea) was derived.

“The
whole of Great Britain and Ireland have combined to help us… relieve the famous
cat artist.”

2 comments:

This was such a sad post! He was a marvelous artist, for sure. His cat paintings are delightful. How sad to think his cat caused his problem. But the other point you raised sure made me glad I'm a vegetarian!

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